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SPEECH I -o , i\'j,i - 

OF y ^<L} 

HON. JAMES A. GAEFIEtl), 

OF OHIo', 

"ON 

THE CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY OF REBELS. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 28, 1864. 



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The House having under consideration the confiscation of the property of Rebels, Mr; QAS- 
FIELD said: 

Mr. Speaker: I had not intended to ask the attention of the House, or to occupy 
its time on this question of* confiscation at-all; but some things have been said, 
touching its military aspects which make it proper for me to trespass upon the 
patience of the House even at this late period of the discussion. Feeling that, in 
some small degree, I represent on this floor the Army of the Republic, I am the more 
emboldened to speak on the subject before us. I have been surprised that in bo 
lengthy and able a discussion so little reference has been made to the merits of the 
resolution itself. Very much of the debate has had reference to questions which I ,1 

believe, with all deference to the better judgment and maturer experience of others, 
are not germane to the subject before the House. 

In the wide range of discussion, the various theories of the legal and political status 
of the rebellious States have been examined — whether they exist any longer oa 
States, and, if they do, wether they are in the Union or out of it. It is perhape 
necessary that we take ground upon that question as preliminary to the discussioa 
of the resolution itself. Two theories, differing widely from each other, have been 
proposed; but F'cannot consider either of them as wholly correct. I cannot agree 
•with the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] who ae- 
knowledges that these States are out of the Union and now constitute a foreign 
people. Nor can I, on the other hand, agree- with those who believe that the in- 
surgent States are not only in the Union, but have lost none of their rights under 
the Constitution and laws of the Union. Our situation aflfords a singular parallel 
to that of the people of Great Britain in their great revolution of the seventeenth 
century. From timie immemorial it was the fiction of English law that the king'- 
§hip was immortal, hereditary, and inalienable; that the king was "king by the 
grace of God ;" he could do no wrong, and his throne could never be vacant. But 
the logic of events brought these theories to a practical test 

James left the throne, threw the great seal of the kingdom into the Thames, and 
fleeing from his own people, took refuge in France. The great statesmen of the 
realm took council together on some of the very questions which we are discussing 
to-day. One said, " The king has abdicated ; we will put another in his place." 
Another said, "Thecrown is hereditary; we must put the heir in his place." The 
men of books and black-letter learning answered, "Jfemo est hceres viventis;" "the 
king is alive and can have no heir." Another said, "We will appoint a regent, and 
consider the kingship, in abeyance until the king returns." The people said, "We 
will have a king, but not James." 

Through all this struggle two fticts were apparent: the throne was vacant ; and 
their king was unworthy to fill it. The British nation cut through the entangle- 
ment of words, and filled it with the man of their choice. We are taught by thia 
that whenever a great people desire to do a thing which ought to be done, they 
will find the means of doing it. 

In this Government we have thrown off the kingly fiction, but there is another 
which we are following as slavishly as ever England followed that. Here, corpo- 
rations are more than kings. It is the doctrine of our common law (if we may be 
said to have a common law) that corporations have neither consciences nor soule ; 
that they cannot cotnmit crimes; that they cannot be punished; and that they are! 
immortaL These propoeitions are being applied to the rebel States, They are cor- 
porations of a political character, bodies corporate and politic ; they are immortftl; 
and cannot be touched by the juBtice or law, or by the nowejp of an outraged Gor- 










ernment. They hover around our borders like malignant, bloodj- fiends, carrying 
death in their course; and' yet -we are told they ■ annot be punished nor can their 
ancient riglits be invaded. The people of the South, under the direction of these 
panthom States, ai'e moving the powers of earth and hell to desttoy this Govern- 
ment. They plead the order of their States as their shield from punishment, and 
the States plead the impunity of soulless corporations. 

But the American people will not be deluded by these theories, nor waste time 
in discussing them. They are striking tlirough all shams with the sword, and are 
finding a praelical solution as England did. And what is that practical solution J 
The Supreme Court of the Uftited States has aided us, at this point, in one of the 
prize cases decided March 3, 1863. It is there decided in effect — 

" That since July 18, 1861, the United States have had full belligerent riebts against all pers<«i* 
fesidingin the districts delared by the President's proclamation to be in rebellion." 

" That the laws of war, whether that war be civil nr inter genteH, convert every citizen of the 
bostile State into a public enemy, and treat him accordingly, whatever may have been his previous 
conduct." 

"That all the rights derived from the laws of war may now, since 1861, be lawfully and eonati- 
tHtionally exercised against all the citizens of the districts in rebellion." 

They decided that the same laws of war which apply to hostile foreign States are 
to be applied to this rebellion. But in so deciding they do not. decide that the re- 
bellious States are therefore a foreign people. I do not hold it necessary to admit, 
Miat they ara a foreign people. I do not admit it. I claim on the contrary that the 
obligations of the Constitution still hang over them; but by their own act of re- 
bellion they have cut themselves of from all rights and privileges under the Consti- 
tution. 

When the Government of the United States declared the country in a state of 
war, the rebel States came under the laws of war. By their acts of rebellion they 
swept away every vestige of their civil and political rights under the Constitution 
of the United States. Their obligations still remained ; but the reciprocal rig' ts 
•which usually accompany obligations, they had forfeited. 

The question then lies open before usrin a state of war, under the laws of war, is 
this resolution constitutional and wise? I insist, Mr. Speaker, that the only consti- 
tutional question involved in the resolution is v^hether this Government, in the ex- 
ercise of its i-ights as a belligerent, under the laws of war, can or cannot punish 
armed rebels and confiscate their estates, both personal and real, for life and forever. 
This is the only constitutional question before us. 

Gentlemen have learnedly discussed the constitutional powers of Congress to 
punish the crime of treason. It matters not how that question is decided; in my 
judgment it has no bearing whatever on the resolution before the House. I will 
only say in passing that the Supreme Court has never decid d that the clause of the 
Constitution relating to treason prohibits forfeiture beyond the lifetime of 
persons attainted. No man in this House has found any decision of the Supreme 
Court giving the meaning to the Constitution which gentlemen on the other side of 
the Chamber have given to it. They can claim no more than the question is res non 
ad/udicata. The arguments we have heand are sufficient to evidence to me, at least, 
that the framers of our Constitution intended that Congress should have full power 
to define treason, and provide for its punishment; but the rule of the English com- 
mon law which permitted attainder, corruption of blood, and forfeiture to be de- 
clared after the death of the accused, should not prevail in this country. To me, the 
clause carries an absurdity on its face, if it be interpreted to mean that treason, the 
highest crime known to law, shall be punished with less severity, so far as it regards 
the estate of the criminal, than any other crime or misdemeanor whatsoever. But, 
as I before said, the present law of confiscation is based on the rights of belligerente 
under the laws of war. 

The gentleman from New York [Mr. F7exaxi>o Wood] a few days since, in hi* 
address to the House, gave us a history of the rebellions which have occurred in this 
ebuntry. I wish to call his attention to one of our rebellions, a very important one, 
which he did not notice, and in which the question of confiscation was very fully 
and very practically discussed. This fact has not, I believe, been brought to the 
attention of the House. Do gentlemen forget that the Union had its origin in revo- 
lution, and that confiscation played a very important part in the war ot that Revo- 
lution f It was a civil war ; and the colonies were far more equally divided on the 
question of loyalty than' the States of the South now are on the question of to-day. 
Many of the thirteen colonies had almost equal parties for and against England in 
that struggle. In New York the parties were of nearly equal strength. In Soath 
Carolina there were probably more Royalists than Whigs. Twenty thousand 
American Tories appeared in the armies against us in the revolutionary struggle. 
Thirty tory regiments served in the British line. 

Our fathers had to deal with these men, asd with their estates. How did they 



solve the problem? I bave looked into the history of its solution and find it full of 
instruction. Ever}' one of the thirteen colonies, with a single exception, confiscated 
the real and personal property of Tories ia arms. They dit it, too, by the recom- 
mendation of Congress. Ifot only so, but they drove Tory sympathizers from the 
country; they would not permit them to remain upon American soil. Examine th« 
statutes of every colony, except New Hampshire, where the tide of battle never 
reached, and vou will find confiscation laws of the most thorough and sweeping 
character. When our commissioners were negotiating the treaty of peace, the last 
matter of difference and discussion was that of confiscated property. 

Tlie British commissioners urged the restoration of confiscated estates, but -Jay and 
Franklin and their colleagues defended the right of confiscation with great ability, 
and refused to sign the treaty at all if that was to be a condition. While these ne-. 
gotiations were pending the colonies memoralized Congress to guard against any 
concession on the point in dispute. On the 17to of Decembpr, 1*782, the Legislature 
of Virginia, by a unanimous vote, passed the following resolution: 

"That all dewands nr requests of tbe British Courts for the restoration of property confl^cated 
fey this State, beiog neither supported by law, equity, or policy, are wholly inadmissible, and that 
our Delegates in Oongress be instructed to move Congress that they may direct their deputies, who 
shall represent these rotates in the General Congress, for adjusting a peace of iruce, neither to 
agree to any tuch restitution or submit that the laws made by any iiidependeut State of this Union 
l>e subjected to the adjudication of any power or powers on earth.'' 

Similiar resolutions were passed by other States, and our commissioners were in- 
structed by Congress to admit no conditions which would compel the restoration of 
«onfiseated estates. The final settlement of the question will be found in fifth article 
of the treaty of peace as it now stands recorded, which provided that Congress 
should recommend to the several colonies to restore confiscated property ; but it 
was well understood by both parties that it would not be done. Congress passed 
the resolution of a recommendation as a matter of form; \Mt no State complied, nor 
was it expected. It was, however, provided that no further confiscations should be 
made, and that Tories should be permitted to remain in America twelve months 
after the treaty. 

In the debates of the Knglish House of Commons in 1783, on the treaty of peace, 
a distinguished member said : 

" I certainly wish that better terms could have been procured for the American loyalists ; but I . 
do not think it was to be expected, that at the end of a successful rebellion, those who were suc- 
«es9ful and victorious should on auy terms, give their estates and possessions to those with whom 
they had bc'n eontemling. If we had not made peace until that point was given up, we must 
have gone to war to all eternity." 

Thus revolutionary confiscation passed into history by the consent and agreement 
of both belligerents. Its principles were also defended by our Government after 
the adoption of the ConstitutioTi. In 1792 Mr. .Tefferson, then Secretary of State, in 
answer to some complaints of the British Government, reviewed the whole question 
at great length and with great ability. I ask my colleague [Mr. Fince] to notice 
this extract which relates to belligerent rights which he had just been discussing: 

"It cannot be denied that the state of war strictly permits a nation to seize the property of its 
aaemies found within its own limits or talien in war, and in whatever form it exists, whether ia 
action or poasess'on. This is so perspicuously laid down by one of the most respectable writers on 
subjects of this kind, that I shall use his words: ' Since it is a condition of war that enemies may 
be deprived of all their rights, it is r(-asonable that everything of an enemj's found amon» his 
enemies, should change its owner, and go to the treasury. It is, moreover, usually directed, in all 
declarations of war, that the goods of enemies, as well as those found among us as those taken in 
war, shall be confiscated. If we follow the mere right of war, even immovable property may be 
sold, and its price carried into the treasury, as is the custom with movable property. But in almost 
all Europe it is only notiiied that their profits during the war, shall be received by the treasury; 
and the war being ended, the immovable property itself is restored, by agreement, to the former 
owner.'" 

Exile and CoNFisoATioire. 

" After premi-sing that these are lawful acts of war, I have shown that the fifth article was re- 
<i<y>nm6ndatory only, its stipuUtions being, not to redore the conflseationa and exiles, but to rt- 
tommend to tiie State Legislatures to restore them: 

'•That this word, having but one uu".ming, establishes the intent of the parties; and, moreover, 
that it was particularly explained by tlie American nestotiators, that the Legislatures would bo 
free to comply with the recommendation or not, and probably would not comply ; 

"That the I5ritish negoUatora so understood it; 

"That the British ■ministry so understood it ; 

" And the members of both Houses of Parliament, as well those who approved as who disap- 
proved the article." — Jefferaon's Works, vol. 3. 

Thus the revolutionary fathers, both before and aft^r the adoption of the Consti- ' 
tution, defended confiscation. 

The Tories that fled to England called upon the Crown for support. A commis- 
sion was appointed to examine their claims and provide for their wants. It is a 
significant fact that of the vast number of Tories perhaps not a thousand remained 
in this country after the war. The people would not enjoy their presence They 



were driven out, and took refuge in all quarters of the globe. They colonized New 
Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and were scattered along the borders of Canada. The 
States would show no favor, even to the few who cairfe back under the provisions 
of the treaty, and refused them the right of voting, or of holdiDg office or property. 
It was well known that there could be no peace between them and our loyal people. 
Their history is a ead record'of infamy, obscurity, and misery. Some exhibited their 
vengeful hate long atter the war was over. Girty and his associates, who murdered 
Crawford in the Indian wars of 1791, were tories of the Revolution. Bowles and 
Panthon, leaders among the Creek Indians, and who started the Florida troubles, 
which resulted in a long and bloody conflict in the swamps of that State, were Toriea 
As a class, they went out with the brand of Cain upon them, and were not permitted 
to return. 

One State alone relented. South Carolina passed an act of oblivion, restored a 
large part of the confiscated estates, and permitted the Tories, after a short time, to 
vote and hold office. Her policy has boine its bitter fruit. Her government has 
bardljj^ been entitled to be called republican. The spirit of monarchy aud disloyalty 
has ruled her councils, and has at last plunged the Republic into the most gigantic 
and bloody of revolutions. 

Let us all take counsel from the wisdom of our fathers. Is it probable that the same 
men who confiscated the property of armed Tories would, a few years later, estab- 
lish it as a fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that no confiscation can be 
made beyond the lifetime of the attainted traitor? It is probable that men who had 
just done what they stubbornly held to be right should enact as a part of the 
supreme law of the land that the same thing should never be done again? 

1 now come more directly to consider the policy involved in the resolution before 
as. Landed estates, Mr. Speaker, are inseparably connected with the peculiar in- 
stitutions of the South. It is well known that the power of slavery rests in large 
plantations ; that the planters capital drives the poor whites to the mountains, 
■where liberty always loT^b to dwell, and to the swamps and by-places of the South ; 
but the bulk of all the real estate is in the hands of the slave-owners who have plotted 
this great conspiracy. Let me give you an instance of this, one of a thousand that 
might be given. In the town of Murfreesboro', Rutherford county, Tenntssee, (a 
place made sacred and glorious forever by the valor of our Army,) there are four- 
teen thousand four hundred and ninety-three acres of land under enclosure owned 
by sixteen men -^ three of the sixteen men own more than ten thousand of the acres. 
One of the three owns half of the whole township of Murfreesboro'. And this is 
only a specimen of what these men of the South are to the lands of the South. Qnly 
a few hundred men own the bulk of the land in any Southern State; these men hold 
the lands and own the slaves. These men plotted the rebellion and thrust it upon us. 
They have had the political power in their hands, and if you permit them to go 
back to their lands they will have it again. The laws of nature, the laws of society 
cannot be overcome by the resolutions of Congress. Grant a general amnesty, let 
these men go back to their lands, and they will again control the South. They 
have so long believed themselves born to rule that they will rule the poor man in 
the future, as in the past, with a rod of iron. The landless man of the South has 
learned the lesson of submission so well that when he is confronted by a landed 
proprietor he begins to be painfully deferential, he is facile and dependent, and leso 
a man than if he stood on a little spot of God's earth covered with his own title- 
deed. 

Sir, if we want a lasting peace, if we want to put down this rebellion so that it 
shall stay forever put down, we must put down its guilty cause; we must put down 
slavery; we must take away the platform on which slavery stands — the great landed 
estates of the armed rebels of the South. Strike that platform from beneath their 
feet, take that land away, and divide it into homes for the men who have saved 
our country. I put it to this House as a necessity which stares us in the face. 
"What, let me ask you, will you do with the battle-fields of the South ? Who owns 
them ? Who owns the red field of Stone River? Two or three men ownjit all. And 
who are these two or three men ? Rebels, every one — one of them a man who once 
sat in this Chamber, but who is now a leader in the rebel army. Will you let him 
come back and re-possess his land ? Will you ask his permission when you go to 
visit the grave of your dead son who sleeps in the bosom of that sacred field? If 
the principles of the gentlemen on the other side be carried out, there is not one of 
the great battle-fields of the war, (save Gettysburg, which lies yonder on this side 
©f the line,) that will not descend to the sons of rebels for all time to come — to men 
whose fathers gained a bad eminence by fighting against their country, and who will 
love those fathers for affection's sake, and love rebellion for their father'^ sake. God 
forbid that we should ever visit those spots, made sacred by the blood of so many 
thousand brave men, and see our enemies holding the fields and plowing the graves 



of ourbrethen, while the. sweat of slaves falls on the sod which ought to be forever 
sacred to every American citizen. 

The history of opinion and its changes in the Army is a very interesting one. 
When the war broke out, men sprang to arms from all parties by a commo-.i impulse 
of generous patriotism, which I am glad to acknowledge here, in the presence of 
those in whose hearts that impulse seems now to be utterly dead. 

I remember to have said to a friend when I entered the Army, "You hate sla- 
very; 80 do I; but I hate disunion more. Let us drop the slavery question and 
fight'to sustain the Union. When the supremacy of the Government has been re- 
established we will attend to the other question." 

I said to another, '' You love slavery. Do you love the Union more ? If you do 
go with me; we will let slavery alone and fight for the Union. When that is saved 
we will take up our old quarrel, if there is anything left to quarrel about." 

I started out with that position taken in good faith, as did thousands of others of 
all parties. But the Army soon found, that do what it would, the black phantom 
met it evei'ywhere, in the camp, in the bivouc, on the battle-field, and at all times. 
It was a ghost that would not be laid. Slavery was both the strength and th-e 
weakness of the enemy. His strength, for it tilled his fields and fed his legions ; his 
weakness, for in the hearts of slaves dwelt dim prophecies that therr deliverance 
from bondage would be the outcome of the war. 

Mr. Seward well says in an official dispatch to our minister at St. James, " Every- 
where the American general receives his most useful and reliable information from 
the negro, who hails his coming as the harbinger of freedom." These ill used men 
came from the cotton fields ; they ewam rivers; they climbed mountains ; they came 
through jungles; in the darkness and storms of the night, to tell us that the enemy 
was coming here and coming there. They were our true friends in every case. 
There has hardly been a battle, a march, or any important event of the war, where 
the friend of our cause, the black man, has not been found truthful and helpful, and 
a-lw^ays devotedly loyah The convinction forced itself i^on the mind of every sol- 
dier that behind the rebel army of soldiers the black army of laborers was feeding 
and sustaining the rebellion, and there could be no victory till its main support 
should be taken away. 

" You do take my house when you do take the prop 
That doth sustain my house. 

The rebellion falls when you take away its chief prop slavery and landed estates. 

Gentlemen on the other side, you tell me that this is an abolition war! If you 
please to say so I grant it. The rapid current of events has made the Army of the 
Republic an abolition Army. I can find in the ranks a thousand men who are in 
favor of sweeping away slavery to every dozen that desire to preserve it. They 
have been where they have seen its malevolence, its baleful efl:'ects upon the country 
and the Union, and they demand that it shall be swept away. I never expected to 
discuss thy demerits of "slavery again, for I deem it unnecessary. The fiat has gone 
forth, and it is dead unless the body-snatchers on the other side of this House shall 
resurrect it and give it galvanic life. 

Mr. CHANLER. Will the gentleman yield to me ? 

Mr. GARFIELD.' I must decline to yield. 

Mr. CHANLER. You asked a question of this side of the House, and I merely 
desired to answer you. 

Mr. GARFIELD. You may say to me that slavery is a divine institution ; you 
may prove it to your own satisfaction from the word of God, perhaps, that slavery is 
a beneficient institution ; I will say to you that all this may be entirely satisfactory 
to your mind, but your beloved friend, slavery, is no more. This is a world of be- 
reavement and changes, and I announce to you that your friend has departed. Hang 
the drapery of mourning on the bier! Go in long and solemn procession after the 
hearse, if you please, and shed you tears of sorrow over the grave, but life is too 
short to allow me to waste an hour in listening to your tearful eulogy over the de- 
ceased. 

I come now to consider another point in this question. I hold it as a settled truth 
that the leaders of this rebellion can never live in peace in this Republic. I do not say 
it in any spirit of vindictiveness, but as a matter of conviction. Ask the men who 
have seen them and met them in the darkness of battle and all the rigors of war- 
fare ; they will tell you it can never be. I make, of course, an exception in favor of 
that sad array of men who have been forced or cajoled by their leaders into the 
ralnks and subordinate oflices of the rebel army. '1 believe a truce could be stuck 
to-day between the ran1c and file of the hostile armies. I believe they could meet 
and shake hands joyfully over returning peace, each respecting the courage and 
manhood of other. "But for the wicked men who brought on this rebellion, for the 
wibked men who led others into the darkness, such a day can never come. Ask 



6 * 

the representatives of Keutucky upon this floor, Vuo know what the rebellion hat 
beea in their State, who know the violence and devastation that has swept over it, 
and they will tell you that all over that Stale n^;ighbor has been slaughteied by 
neighbor, feuds fierce as human hate can make them have sprang up, and so long 
as revenge has an arm to sti'ike, its blows will never cease to be struck, if such 
men come back to dwell in tlieir midst. This is (rue of every State over which the 
desolating tide of war has swept. If you would not iri augur ate an exterminating 
warfare, to continue while you and I and our children and children's children live, 
set it down at once that the leaders of this rebellion must be executed or banished 
from the Republic. They must follow the fate of the Tories of the Revolution*. 

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Army is a unit on these great questions ; and I 
must here be pei'mitted to quote from one of nature's noblemen, a man from Virginia, 
with the ])ride of the Old Dominion in his biood.bnt who could not be seduced from 
ills patriotism — one who, amid the storm of war that surged against him at Chicka- 
raauga, stood firm as a rock in the see — Geoige H. Thomas. That man wrote a 
communication to the Secretary of war nearly a year ago, saying, in substai.ce, for 
I quote fiom roemory, "I send you the enclosed paper from a subordinate officer; I 
endorse its sctrtiments. and I will add, that we can never make solid progress against 
the rebellion until we take more sweeping and severe measures; we must make 
these people feel the rigors of War, subsist our Aimy upon them, and leave their 
country so that there will be little in it for them to desire." Thus spoke a man who 
is very far from being what gentlemen upon the other side of the House are pleased 
to call an abolitionist, or a northern fanatic; and in saying this he spoke the voice 
of the Army. 

Mr. Speakei', I am surprised and amazed beyond measure at what I have seen in 
this House. Having been so long with mm who had but one thought upon these 
great themes, it is passing strange to rae to hear men talking of the old issues and 
discussions of four years ago. They forget that we live in actions more than in 
years. They forget that sometimes a nation may live a generation in a single year; 
that the experience of the last three years has been greater than that of centuries 
of quiet and peace. They do not seem to realize that we are at war. They do not 
-seem to realize that this is a struggle for existence — a terrible fight of flint with 
flint, bayonet with bayonet, blood for blood. They still retain some hope that they 
can smile rebellion into peace. They use terms strangely. In tliese modern days 
words have lost their significance. If a man steal his thousands from the Treasury, 
he is not a thief: oh, no; he is a "defaulter." If a man hang shackles on the 
limbs of a human being and drives him through life as a slave, it is not man-steal- 
ing, it is not even slavery, it is only " another form of civilization." We are using 
words in that strange way. There are public journals in Few York citj', I am told, 
that never call this a rebellion — it is only a "civil commotion," a "fraternal strife." 
-It was described more vigorously in this Chamber a few days ago as " an inhuman 
crusade against the South." I had thought the days of "southern brethren" 
and "wayward sisters" had gone b}', but I find it here in the high noon of its 
glory. One would suppose from all we hear that war is gentle and graceful exer- 
cise, to be indulged in in a quiet and pleasant manner. 1 have latelj- seen a stanza 
from the nursery rhymes of England, which I commend to these gentle-hearted 
patriots who propose to put down the rebellion with soft words and paper resolu- 
tions : 

" There was an old man who said, how 
Shall I flee from this horrible cow ? 

I will sit on the slile, 

And continue to smile, 
. Which may soften the heart of this cow." 

I tell you, gentlemen, the heart of this great rebellion cannot be softened by 
smiles. You cannot send commissioners to Richmond, as the gentleman from K"ew 
Yoi'k [Mr. Pernando Wood] proposes, to smile away the horrible facts of this war. 
Kot by smiles, but by thundering voUej's, must this rebellion be met, and by such 
means alone. I am reminded of Maeaulay's paragraph in regard to the revolution 
in England : 

"It is because we had a preserving rerolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had 
a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude 
that we have order in the mid^t of anarchy. F<ir the authority of law, for the securi'y of property, 
for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our homes, our grratitude is due,-under Him who 
raises up and pulls down nations at His pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and 
to William of Orange." 

Mr. Speaker, if we want a peace that is not a hollow peace, we must follow that 
example, and make thorough work of this war. We must establish Ireedotn in the 
midst of servitude, and the authority of law in the midst of rebellion. We must 
fill the thinned ranks of our armies, assure them that a grateful aud loving people 
are behind to sanction and encourage them, and they will go down against the ene- 



T 

my beariDg with them the majesty and might of a great nation. We must follow 
the march of the Army with a free and loyal population ; we must protect that 
population by the strong arm of military power. The war was armounced by 
proclamation, and it must end by proclamation. We can hold the insurgent 
States in military subjection half a century, if need be, until they are purged 
of their poison, and stand u[) clean before the country. They must come back 
with clejn hands if they come at all. I hope to see in all those States the men 
who have fought and suffered fur the truth, tilling the fields on which they pitched 
their tents. I hope to see them, like old Kaspar of Blenheim, on the summer 
evenings, with their children npon their knees, and pointing out the spot where 
brave men fell and marble commemorates it. Let no breath of treason be whis- 
pered there. I would have no man there, like one from my own State, who came to 
tlie Army before the great struggle in Georgia and gave us his views of peace. H« 
came as the friend of Vallandigiiara, the man for whom the gentleman on the other 
side of the House from my Slate worked and voted. We were on the eve of the 
great battle. I said to him, "You wish to make Mr. Yallandigham Governor of 
Ohio. Why ?" "Because, in the first place," using the language of the gentleman 
from New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood,] "you cannot subjugate the South, and w« 
propose to withdraw without trying it longer. In the next place, we will have 
nothing to do with this abolition war, nor will we give another man or another dol- 
lar for its support." (Remember, gentlemen, what occurred in regard to the con- 
scription bill this morning.) "To morrow," I continued, " we may be engaged in a 
death-struggle with the rebel army that confronts us, and is daily increasing. 
Where ia the sympathy of your .party ? Do you want us beaten or Bragg beaten V 
He answered that.they had no interc'^t in fighting ; that they did not believe in 
fighting. 

Mr. NOBLE. A question right here. 

Mr. GARFIELD. I cannot yield ; I havi no time. You can hear his name if you 
wish. He was the agent sent by the copperhend Secretary of State to distribute 
election blanks to the armv of the Cumberland. His name was Grifiiths. 

Mr. NOBLE. A single question. 

Mr. GARFIELD. I have no time to sparo. 

Mr. NOBLE. I want to ask the gentleman if he knows that Mr. Griffiths has 
made a question of veracity with iiim by a poeitive denial of the alleged conversa- 
tion published in the Cincinnati Enquirer. 

Mr. GARFIELD. No virtuous denials in the Cincinnati Enquirer can alter the 
facts ot this conversation, which was heard by a dozen officers. 

I asked him further, "How would it aifect your party if we should crush the 
rebels in this battle and utterly destroy them? *' We would probably lose votes by 
it?" "How would it affect your party if we ehoitld be beaten." It would prob- 
ably help us in votes." 

That,, gentlemen, is the kind of support the Army is receiving in what should hu 
the house of its friends. That, gentlemen, is the kind of support these men are in- 
clined to give this country and its Army in this terrible struggle, I hasten to make 
honorable exceptions. I know there are honorable gentlemen ou the other side who 
Uo not belong to that category, aod I am proud to acknovjledge them as my friendf. 
I am sure they do not sympathize with these efforts whose tendency is to pull down 
the fabric of our Government by aiding their friends over the border to it. Their 
frietids, I say, for when the Ohio election was about off in the army at Chattanooga, 
there was more anxiety in the rebel camp than in our own. The pickets had talked 
face to face, and made daily i«nquiiy how the election in Ohio was going. And at 
midnight on the 13th of October, when the telegraphic news was flished down to 
us, and it was announced to the. army that the Union had sixty thousand majority 
in Ohio, there arose a shout from every tent along the line on that rainy midnight 
which rent the skies with jubilees, and sent despair to the heart of those who were 
"waiting and watching across the border." It told them that their colleagues, their 
svmpai hizers, their friends, I had almost said their emissaries, at the North had 
failed to sustain themselves in tui-oiiig the tide against the Union and its Army. 
And from that hour, but Bot till that hour, the Army felt safe from the enemy be- 
hind it. 

Thanks to the 13th of October. It told tiiirteen of my colleagues that they had 
no constituencies! 

I deprecate these apparently partisan remarks; it hurts me to make them ; bat 
it hurts me more to know they are true. I would not make them, but that I wi«b 
to unmask the pretext that thes* men are in earnest, and laboring for the vigorous 
prosecution of the war and the maintenance of the Government I cannot easily 
forget the treatment which the conscription bill received this morning. Even the 
f w men in the army who voted for Yallandigham wrote ou the back of their tick- 
ets 'Draft, draft," but their reprea«ntatiT«8 her« think otherwise. 



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I conclude by returning once more to the resolution before us. Let no weak sen- 
timents of misplaced sympathy deter us from inaugurating a measure -which will 
cleanse our nation and make it the fit home of freedom and a glorious manhood. 
Let us not despise the severe wisdom of our revolutionary fathers, when they served 
their generation in a similar way. Let the Republic drive from its soil the traitors 
that have conspired against its life, as God and His angels drove Satan .ind his host 
from Heaven. He was not too merciful to be just, and to hurl down in chains and 
everlasting darkness the ''traitor angel" who '•first broke peace in Heaven" and 
rebelled against Him. 



PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGH OF 1864, 

mim QmmtmmM committee. 



Hon. E. D, MORGAN, of New York. 
" JAS. HARLAN, of Iowa; 
" L. M. MORRILL, of Maine. 
{Senate.) 



Hon. E. B, WASHBURNE, of IllinoiB, 
'• R. B.VAN VALKENBURG, N,Y 
" J. A. GARFIELD, of Ohio. 
" J. G. BLAINE, of Maine. 
{House of Representatives.) 
E. D. MORGAN, Chairman. JAS. HARLAN, Treasurer. , D. N. COOLEY, 5ec> 

Committee Rooms, Washington, B. C. Sept. 2, 1864. 
Dear Sir : The Union Congressional Committee, in addition to the documents 
already published, propose to issue immediately the following documenta for dis- 
tribution among the people. 

1. MoGlellan's Military Career Reviewed and Exposed. 

2. George H. Pendleton, his Disloyal Record and Antecedents. 

3. The Chicago Copperhead Convention, the men who composed and controled it. 

4. Base surrender of the Copperheads to the Rebels in Arms. 

5. The Military and Naval Situation, and the Glorious Achievements of our Sol- 

diers and Sailors. 

6. A Few Plain Words with the Private Soldier. 

7. "What Lincoln's Administration, has done. 

8. The History of MoClellan's "Arbitrary Arrest'' of the Maryland Legislature. 

9. Can the Country Pay the Expenses of the war? 

10. Doctrines of the Copperheads North id^tical with those of the Rebels South. 

11. The Constitution Upheld and Maintained. 

1 2. Rebel Terms of Peace. 

13. Peace, to be Enduring, must be Conquered. 

14. A History of Cruelties and Atrocities of the Rebellion. 

15. Evidences of a CoppeiJ'head Conspiracy in the Northwest. 

The above documents will be printed in English and German in eight or sixteen 
page pamphlets, and sent, postage free, according to directions at the rate of one or 
two dollars per hundred copies. The plans and purposes of the Copperheads hav- 
ing been disclosed by the action of the Chicago Convention, they should at once be 
laid before the Joyal people of the country. There is but two months between 
this and the election, and leagues, clubs,' and individuals should loose no time in 
sending in their orders. Remittances should be made in Greenbacks or drafts on 
New York City, payable to the order of James Harlan. 

Address— Free. 

Hon. JAMES HARLAN, 

Washington, JDt C. 

Very respectfully, yours, <fea, 

D. N. COOLEY, Secretary. 



Printed by Lemuel Towers, for the Union Congresssonal Committee. 



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HoUinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1955 



